May Reading List: Animal-Inspired Play Titles

As we start thinking about ideas for next year's season, why not dive headfirst into the entertaining world of plays featuring animals in their titles? So many creative opportunities and endless possibilities for your student performers to bring these captivating characters to life.

These plays are designed to help you unleash the magic that celebrates the wild spirit of storytelling. Perfect options to grace your stage or classroom next year!

Cat hair is infinite. No matter how much hair you brush off of a cat, there will always be more. Always.

Cat hair has existed since the beginning of time, and it will be here long after cockroaches have become extinct. It is the secret driving force behind business and politics, and is plotting the downfall of humanity even as we speak.

Unbelievable? Find out for yourself in the insidious and utterly terrifying tale, The Absolutely Insidious and Utterly Terrifying Truth About Cat Hair, which is also totally hilarious, easy to stage, and suitable for an insanely large cast. Brenda! Put down that brush! Step away from the cat!

The field believes in uniformity. Lovely rows of blades all the same height. Lovely rows of blades exhibiting standard behaviour of green grassness.

In They Eat Sunshine, Not Zebras, nothing stands in the way of their orderly life. Until they wake up one morning to see a yellow dandelion in their midst. Sunny (that’s the dandelion) is bright and warm and just wants to be friends. The field wants nothing to do with her nonstandard, non-green ways.

A dandelion will turn their orderly way of life upside-down. A dandelion must be destroyed. Isn’t that what you do when something is different?

Risk comes in many forms (skateboarding without a helmet) and fears (raising your hand in class). There are dumb risks (don’t bungee jump into a bear trap) and smart risks. Sometimes you need to leap without knowing what the outcome will be.

Is safety really as simple as duct taping pillows all over your body and never going outside? Join the characters in the vignette play, Bungee Jump Bear Trap, as they try to figure it all out.

Seriously though, stay away from bear traps.

Aaron is failing History, and his parents are angry.

Worried and anxious, he goes to the park, where he meets a bunny…a talking bunny. Then a rainbow appears. It talks, too. Both the rainbow and the bunny are determined to make Aaron happy—and to best one another in doing so—even though they both seriously freak Aaron out.

Eventually, Aaron learns the truth…that for centuries, rainbows and bunnies have been locked in a bitter rivalry to make people happy, and now he has been drawn into their struggle. But today, a new revelation will lead to the beginning of the end. This is the day of Rainbows vs. Bunnies: Annihilation!

Heywood is a special kind of place. A small town where everyone knows everyone.

When Jimmy wants to do something that proves he's a man, the whole town knows before he's even finished the thought.

In Heywood, when a guy wants to prove he's a man, he goes to the edge of town. For there's something at the edge of town that can't be found in Heywood: A street.

In No Horse Town, Heywood is a no car, no horse, no street town. And for the young men of Heywood, crossing the street is as daring and as dangerous as it gets…

Why did the chicken cross the road? Why is the sky blue? What’s two plus two? Why did he kill himself?

A group of teenagers grapple with unanswered questions as they struggle to understand why someone would run out on to the highway in front of semi. Especially when that someone seemed to have it all.

Here’s a chicken. Here’s the road. There’s the other side. What do you do when there is no answer? Find out in the issue-based drama, Chicken. Road..

The evil Dr. H.Q. Crankspea has really done it this time. The dastardly villain has stolen the antlers from Santa's reindeer. Everybody knows that reindeer need their antlers to fly straight. Christmas is doomed!

Joe Mufferaw (our hero) needs help from the most unlikely of sources - the audience! Can the stolen antlers be recovered? Can Christmas be saved? Or will Joe be too late?

The holiday comedy, The Robbed Reindeer, is excellent for grade school and family audiences.

We can all relate to feeling small in a big world. The characters in A Box of Puppies share their insecurities, their frailties and their coping mechanisms with that big bad world.

This collection holds four short plays. Each are fresh, honest, and true. You know each of these characters. Perhaps they mirror your own insecurities and frailties.

Each play can be performed independently, or perform all four together for an outstanding competition piece.

Birdie would like you to meet her parents: a goldfish and a moldy piece of bread. Don’t mind the yelling, she didn’t get a pony as a child. And she certainly didn't burn down an owl farm.

But she's willing to feed you. And there may be egg rolls and chocolate cake! That is, if Carol the ex-maid brings it and doesn't hold a grudge against Birdie for being fired. You may also meet What, When, Alexa (who's hiding in the bathroom) and Birdie’s sister Scoot, who thinks she’s a glazed Virginia Ham.

To Kill A Mocking Birdie is a perfectly crazy dinner party. Consider this your invitation.